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Smart home infographic

Smart home infographic DIRROR

Smart locks & video door bell

Smart locks enable you to give access to certain people even when you are not home. Video doorbell shows you who is there giving you the possibility to allow the delivery man to place the package in the mud room or let in the cleaning personnel.

Connected smoke detectors

In a big house, it can actually be a problem that you won’t hear the sound at night, if it’s on another floor or in a room further away. Connected smoke detectors turn on the alarm in the whole house so you can take action as soon as possible. They also come with a system that shows in which room the alarm went on, should you be out of house.

Automated garage doors

Garage doors that recognise you when you come home. That’s pure luxury.

Smart lightning

Lightning that can be tuned to fit your mood and create an atmosphere. Turn off all lightning with a simple click or voice command when leaving home and automate it to fit your daily schedule.

Smart thermostat

Smart thermostat is one of the first smart home gadgets that people get. It is an efficient way to save energy and it learns over time your routine and pattern and warms up your home by the time you arrive.

Connected smart appliances

A fridge that tells you when you are running low on groceries, or a coffee machine that prepares the perfect cup for every household member. But smart appliances go further than the kitchen. Think cleaning robots, smart washing machines and more.

Wireless speakers

Wireless speakers give you the possibility to play different music in any room just the way you like it.

Voice controlled system & a smart mirror as a smart home hub

Control your smart home with a voice-controlled assistant and a smart mirror with a touchscreen. It is the intelligent home central bridge control that it always where it needs to be. This gives you the possibility to keep an overview and configure of all your devices in one central place. By combining a calendar, emails and more, it also replaces your family control centre for a better and more organised planning. You can even save by leaving out other smart screens and gadgets in your home, because it can be integrated into DIRROR. Ask your KNX system integrator to find out more!

Security & monitoring systems

With all the connected gadgets and IoT devices in your new smart home, you might wonder about the security. If you use closed systems such as KNX standard for automated home, you shouldn’t be worried. However, you might think about getting a monitoring system for your smart home when using WiFi connected gadgets. A smart “watchdog” such as Akita tracks all the IP addresses that access your devices, and notifies you when needed.

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How to integrate DIRROR into your KNX installed smart home

Smart Home IMM 2018 DIRROR

So you have a KNX installation in your home and you are wondering how and if you can integrate DIRROR into it? The short answer is: yes, you can! The longer answer as to “how” follows…

For the ones who have yet to hear about KNX, here’s a quick introduction. So far, we have been talking about home automation in relation to IoT devices and gadgets which mostly work with a wireless connection. However, there is another way to make your home smart. KNX is a standardised network communication protocol for building automation. The system is combined of devices such as sensors and actuators which are connected together by a two-wire bus. An important information hereby is, that the devices and applications can be made by different manufacturers but as long as these are labelled with a KNX trademark, these can be combined together into a working installation. A standardized protocol allows the companies to produce a wide range of products which allow, for example, the integration of:

  • Heating & Air Conditioning control
  • Shutter & shading control
  • Alarm and security monitoring
  • Energy management & Electricity/Gas/Water metering
  • Audio & video distribution

You already have KNX installation up and running and you are looking for a central control centre for it all?

Every smart house that is more than just a SONOS system and couple of Philipps Hue lights, needs a central control. Especially when you have an alarm system. At the IMM 2018 in Cologne, DIRROR was featured in the “Let’s be Smart – the future of intelligent Home” installation. Using KNX installation, the smart home had one DIRROR at the entrance area and the other one in the bedroom. The great thing about DIRROR is that it doesn’t look like it’s technology at first. You can hang up pictures next to it and it will look just like a mirror. But it has a powerful machine built into it. Watch the video below to see how DIRROR can be integrated into your KNX installation.

In order to control your KNX installed smart home with DIRROR you need to download a software such as Gira QuadClient. However, you can use any software that can control KNX. If unsure which one to get, ask your installation company for recommendations.

 

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Happy Science Fiction Day!

SIENCE FICTION DAY Dirror smart mirror

All the holidays and we are still not getting enough! So, here’s a fun holiday to celebrate – Science Fiction Day! Obviously, because we love technology and science fiction, and we like to consider ourselves to be very innovative minds, we just have to celebrate! So, take a seat, buckle up and join us for the ride into the future!

5 Years from Today…

you are just getting home with the kids and receive a call. You pass DIRROR and accept the call with a touch. Your friend appears on the screen in life size and states that she needs help with deciding which outfit to wear for your dinner later tonight. While you are getting the kids ready and preparing them a snack, your friend is showing you her outfit options and you agree on the black jumpsuit. Sexy, but elegant.

However, before you can head out for the night you still have an appointment with your bank’s financial advisor and you have to do groceries so that your kids and husband can cook themselves a dinner later. You get your paperwork together just in time for your advisor to call in. She greets you with a smile and gets right to the point. You are currently looking into some additional investment opportunities and your advisor provides you several interesting ones. You decide on buying into a tech company and authorise your advisor to act in your behalf with a signature you pass to a document that just appeared on your DIRROR. Satisfied with your investment, you go on and check what your kids had wished for the dinner tonight.

You open the cooking app on your dashboard, add all necessary ingredients to a shopping cart plus some more for breakfast tomorrow and pick the store to buy it from. You order the groceries to be there in an hour, that is just in time for cooking.

Before you start getting yourself ready for the dinner, you quickly fly over your schedule for tomorrow, check, if teachers had left any notes about your kids and what homework they had gotten and then switch your DIRROR into a stand-by mode with your family picture as a background.

10 Years from Today…

your kids are almost grownups and their schedule is fuller than ever. But with your busy schedules DIRROR is your virtual assistant for all that helps to organise your family life.

Your daughter has her prom in few days and she still hasn’t found a dress to wear. So, today is the day! She asks for DIRROR to show her prom dresses in navy blue and it shows her 5 recommendations that suit her style preference and are a good fit for her body. How does it know the fitting, you ask? Well, welcome to the future: With the built-in sensors DIRROR can not only measure you and show the clothes that fit you best, it can also recognize and analyse changes in your body and notify you when there’s a reason for a concern. Now you can even save the visits to the doctor and do it from the comfort of your home!

But back to prom dress shopping. Your daughter is now virtually trying on already a second one. The first one was showing a little bit too much skin and dad didn’t really agree with it but the second one seems like the one. From the side menu, she picks a recommended jacket and tries it on, because the evening can get chilly. Happy with her selection, she adds it to the cart and orders it with the morning express.

digital wallpaper interior

15 Years from Today…

DIRROR? It’s your wallpaper. It’s the beach view with an endless ocean. It’s the wild Amazonas forest. It’s the blue-blue sky. It’s a digital reflection of your wardrobe. It’s a mirror and it’s not. It is, what you want it to be.

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Smart Mirror Buying Guide

Smart mirror buying guide

It’s hard to ignore the fact that there are more and more smart mirrors popping up in the booming IoT market. There are different technologies for a DIY magic mirror but also several plug-and-play digital mirrors to choose from. Because smart mirrors are quite new on the market the chances are that you might be a little overwhelmed when trying to gather and compare all the information. So, when deciding on which smart mirror to invest in, it is good to know the different aspects that make a difference between a good smart mirror and an excellent one.

TOUCHSCREEN

In principle, there are two types of smart mirrors: with and without touchscreen. Which one you should buy depends on what do you want to use your smart mirror for. A digital mirror with touchscreen is interactive and gives you a wide array of additional use cases compared to one with a regular mirror surface that would simply show you information based on pre-configured software settings.

MIRROR EFFECT

A conventional mirror works on a simple principle: A sheet of glass is attached to a thin, non-transparent metallic layer which reflects back your image. In case of a digital mirror, this principle needs to be altered and the metallic layer replaced by a special reflective composite that is partly transparent or that makes the background visible depending on the level of brightness. Smart mirrors without touchscreens usually use a transparent two-way mirrors. However, when choosing a smart mirror with touchscreen, there are various processing techniques which are very costly in the production. Some digital mirrors use a mirroring foil to create the reflective surface. It is a slightly cheaper option and adds a stronger darkening layer to the display. For a better display picture quality, special mirror coating proves to be a better solution thus far. Nonetheless, because the reflective composite has to be transparent to allow the background display to show, the digital mirror is usually less suited for applying make-up but ideal for the last check-up before leaving the house.

FINGERPRINTS

This becomes a relevant aspect when looking into touchscreen options. The mirror display needs to have a special coating applied that reduces fingerprints similar to smartphones and tablets.

PERFORMANCE

Many DIY mirrors without a touchscreen use Raspberry-PI. However, this can be too weak to operate a large high-resolution displays and thus can cause a juddering and halting image. In comparison, DIRROR is a fully functional computer with a 4-core processor. It uses a high-performance Multi-Touch Display and a Windows 10 Home operation system to provide an excellent performance.

COMPATIBILITY

Weather you already own smart home gadgets or just start off with making your home more intelligent, a digital mirror should be compatible with other systems. As an example, DIRROR uses a Windows 10 operating system and can be connected with smart home gadgets already today. You can connect Bluetooth speakers or a smart thermostat, smart lightning systems and more with a wireless internet connection. Since it is a fully functional computer in a mirror form, it can be used as a smart home hub to control and configure all home automation settings.

POWER CONSUMPTION

Always ON means under circumstances that a smart mirror consumes a lot of power. However, if you don’t want your electricity bills to skyrocket, you should look for digital mirrors with power saving modes. The best smart mirrors come with a working mode, in which the mirror is a full-surface computer, and 2 power saving modes: stand-by and hibernation. In best case you can set the settings and triggers to suit your habits.

GUARANTEE & WARRANTY

Once you decide to purchase you want to be sure that you get a product that lasts. And if anything should happen to it you get it repaired, exchanged or money back. Look for one with at least for 1 year guarantee and 2 years warranty. And do note, that guarantee and warranty under the EU law mean slightly different things.

 

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Digital Mirror | Frequently Asked Questions

Bildschirmfoto 2017-12-16 um 15.50.20

Whenever we introduce DIRROR, there are some common questions coming up again and again, so we figured it to be clever to answer them for you all in here.

  • What is a digital mirror?

A digital mirror is a two-way mirror with an electronic display behind the glass. The display can show the viewer different kinds of information in the form of widgets, such as weather, time, date, and news updates. However, smart mirrors which are built with a two-way mirror do not have a touch function. DIRROR uses a multi-touch touchscreen with a high quality special coating technique, that gives the display a reflective mirror-like surface and the possibility to operate the mirror with your fingertips.

Digital mirror would be useful for busy individuals that want to multitask and stay informed while on the go. Instead of constantly pulling out a device, one could get informed while finishing daily grooming tasks. Moreover, touchscreen function opens up thousands of other use cases for the smart mirror – smart home hub and control, kitchen and shopping assistant, family control centre, home gym and more.

  • What’s the difference to a tablet or smartphone?

Hands-free! – instead of constantly pulling out a device or searching for it around the house because you’re not quite sure where you last left it, DIRROR hangs always at the same place and allows you to perform other tasks while providing you with the information you need.

The size – the large touchscreen display makes DIRROR a social device where you can easily work together with two or more people.

Beautiful piece of furniture – on a stand-by mode, DIRROR is a great addition to the interior design. Digital frame for your pictures, for world renown artwork or simply a mirror with a sleek and clean design.

Overview – DIRROR provides you with an excellent overview for you daily activities and helps you plan and organise your life.

  • Can I transfer files and data between DIRROR and my other devices?

There are several possibilities to transfer files and data between DIRROR and your other devices: You can send data with Bluetooth and WiFi, use a transfer link (e.g. WeTransfer) or use any Cloud service from Dropbox to Google Drive and iCloud.

  • How to connect DIRROR with other gadgets?

DIRROR can be connected with all your devices with Bluetooth and WiFi.

  • What do I need to hang up DIRROR?

In order to securely hang up DIRROR, you need two screws and two anchors for a firm fixation on your wall.

 

Didn’t get your questions answered? Feel free to comment below and let us know your questions and concerns!

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Automated Home: How to pick a smart home hub that suits your needs?

Smart home automation

The number of standards and available platforms for automated home are constantly growing. You need one app for lights, another one for the heating and if you want your devices to run on schedule you are often required to power up your PC to do so in the web platform. So really, it seems like making something smart has become unnecessary complicated instead.

Yet, the basic principle behind automated home is to have one single dashboard that consolidates the otherwise unruly mess of smart home devices. Smart home hub is like a brain that lets all your smart home devices work together. It’s a more holistic approach to automate your devices to run on schedule and interact with one another based on preconfigured scenarios.

Is voice controlled smart home hub enough for automated home?

Apple Home Pod, Google Home or Amazon Alexa – The big players in things smart home hub are all concentrating on voice controlling your home. However, we all know that voice control can be quite frustrating at times. Say you want Alexa to play a certain song and it doesn’t find it just because it doesn’t entirely understand your accent. Or just to bring you a more dramatic example: You ask your Google Home to turn on the water sprinklers in the kitchen because something has caught fire and it turns on the coffee machine instead! In such cases a touch control becomes very handy and sometimes even extremely important.

With the release of Amazon Echo Show, it seems that Amazon has recognised the limits of voice control. With the addition of touch screen to its predecessor, it tries to tackle the problems noted above. However, where does this kind of product really belong to in our homes? Whether you find the design of Echo Show appealing or not, this is yet another type of product which you need to fit with your interior. This is why we in DIRROR decided to take a piece of furniture every household already has and uses on a daily basis and make it smart. A mirror is often the first thing we look at in the morning, everyone has a place for it in their household and it offers a large surface that can be used for more than just a reflection.

Our smart mirror comes with a multi-touch touchscreen, voice control and a selection of handcrafted and high quality wooden frames which make this high technology fit into any household. When switched off, DIRROR looks no different to a regular mirror but when activated it offers you so many more options than any currently available smart home controller. Not only can it be used for smart home control and as a screen for your security cameras. It is also excellent as a family command centre, as your assistant in the kitchen and as the central entertainment centre of your home. You can also choose whether or not you want to have a camera integrated, as we respect and honour your privacy.

DIRROR can be configured to suit your needs; You can pick the size, colour, screen resolution and more. And with more than 600,000 apps available in the App store, you have all the best qualities from PC, tablet and smartphone combined in a single product.

DIRROR is here to simplify your day and make more time for the things that really matter in your life.

 

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Apps We Love to Use with DIRROR

DIRROR shopping, maps, youtube

In the last two posts, we introduced you to our favourite Productivity and Smart Home Apps for DIRROR. In this post, we would like to indulge into entertainment a little more. However, with DIRROR we promise to make your life simpler and more organised, so these Apps are not only for fun but also good for boosting your productivity.

Watching YouTube Videos with Friends

Did you just found this awesome video in YouTube that you want to show to your friends sitting next to you but the small smartphone or laptop screen is inconvenient for everybody to see at once? Been there, done that! This is why we love the YouTube app on DIRROR! It is much more crowd friendly!

The reason we love it so much is that you can search and watch videos all together with no one having settle for a bad view or wait for their turn.

Discovering the World with the Maps App

There are so many places on Earth that you are yet to discover and don’t know where to start? The Maps App is not only great to find directions and best connections to navigate through daily traffic but also to find your new travel destination and plan your next vacations. With its excellent 3D function, you can change your perspective and zoom down to a street level. Walk the streets of New York City, Berlin, Paris, Bangkok or wherever you like, really!

And the reason we love it so much, is that on DIRROR’s big touchscreen and intuitive interface, the views become alive in front of your eyes providing you with lovely details to anywhere on Earth.

Online Shopping Reinvented

Zalando App on DIRROR reinvents online shopping as you know it! This Europe’s biggest online shop for shoes and fashion has developed an excellent shopping app. Its clean and simple design provides you with fashionable trends, inspiration and quick & easy checkout process.

The reason we love it so much is that on the large screen of DIRROR you can view products in real size, shop alone or together with friends and pick out your favourite pieces to be delivered to your home. Convenience and fun combined in one.

 

Want more inspiration on how DIRROR can make your daily life more fun and simple?

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Smart Home Apps We Love to Use with DIRROR

Apps we love to use DIRROR

In our last post about Apps for DIRROR, we introduced you to our favourite Productivity Apps for DIRROR. In this post, we bring the future a little bit closer and introduce you to some of our favourite Apps to make you feel like a science fiction movie. Yeap, meet your new smart home with DIRROR!

Smart Home with Conrad Connect

As a Conrad Connect Smart Home Cockpit, DIRROR provides you with a great overview of all your smart home gadgets. It supports a wide range of smart devices which you can centrally control via DIRROR. The reason we love it so much, is the simplicity how you can connect various devices, create your own projects or import public projects to set rules for your smart devices.

For example, you can create your own morning routine: when it’s time to wake up the lights turn on with a soft wake-up alarm and a “Good morning!” SMS. At the same time, the coffee machine turns on to prepare you a fresh cup of coffee, your blinds open and while you get ready DIRROR will update you with latest news and give you an overview of your planned meetings and appointments for the upcoming day.

DIRROR with Conrad Connect Smart Home allows you to control everything from lights and temperature to home appliances, security cameras and more. With endless possible combinations, there is certainly something for you, too!

DIRROR as a Remote Control for Your Music

We at DIRROR value the combination of simplicity and good quality, which is why we are big fans of SONOS speakers. We want to listen to the music in every room of the house without the hassle of moving the speakers around or laying cables. With SONOS wireless multi-room speaker system you will transform the sound of your home. Simply set up the speakers with SONOS Controller App in DIRROR, connect it with you favourite music streaming App and you are set to go.

There are several reasons why we love it so much: Firstly, you have a wide selection of different music streaming providers and you can also combine these to create local playlists; Second, you can centrally control in which specific speaker the music should play in and third, you can set the volume of each speaker in accordance with the room it is at.

Personal Assistant in Your Kitchen

Juggling between your work, home, family and friends can be a lot! Somewhere between all that you should also find time to run your daily errands like dry cleaners, doctor appointments, grocery shopping and cooking. Planning and cooking your meals alone, can take a big chunk of your time! Yet, it is so important to eat nutritious and healthy meals to keep up your energy levels. Precisely for this reason we love the Cookidoo app in combination with Thermomix! You have a huge databank of recipes to help you plan your whole week ahead of time and you can have your groceries delivered to your door just in time to cook.

The reason we love it so much, is that on DIRROR’s big screen you can plan your weekly meals together with your whole family. Especially, when placed in your kitchen, the combination of DIRROR and Thermomix is so simple and fun for anybody to start preparing culinary delicacies at their five-star home kitchen.

 

These were some of our favourites Apps for smart home with DIRROR. More information about how DIRROR can make your home smarter can be found HERE.

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DIRROR in Japan: one of the Highlights at the “+Style” in Tokyo

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

At this year’s +Style in Tokyo, DIRROR turned out to be one of the highlights! Next to several other innovations presented at the show, DIRROR impressed the audience with its excellent design and the latest technology. At the show, we presented DIRROR S with a 10,1 inch display in Nordic Hazel Brown.

The +Style takes place once a year in Tokyo and present the latest trends and innovations in technology. DIRROR is one of the 19 new releases to be launched in Japan. The combination of natural materials and innovative technology Made in Germany, as well as the interplay between practicability and anaesthetic mirroring, was met with a great interest in Japan.

The articles in Japan media:

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20171027/gnw/00m/040/007000c

http://diamond.jp/articles/-/147172

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Apps We Love to Use with DIRROR

DIRROR weather app

As there are 600.000 apps available for DIRROR, it can get a little overwhelming to pick out the very best ones. This is why we decided to introduce you to some of our favourites for DIRROR. But we, too, have too many favourites to fit into one post! So, we decided to bring you a series of posts to introduce you to the Apps we love to use with DIRROR.

In this first post, we will indulge into TOP 3 apps for DIRROR that help you become more productive in your daily life.

Daily News with DIRROR

There are several News Apps available in the Windows App store, but our absolute favourite for reading news with DIRROR is the native Windows App. The content of the App can be adapted to suit your individual interests and with the live tiles feature all the interesting headlines from your selected topics will pop up when new articles are published.

The reason we love it so much is because it is like reading an old-school newspaper: DIRROR shows all the news at one sight and with an intuitive user interface it is easy to scroll through the different articles.

Planning and Organising with DIRROR

For all the planners and organisers among us, the Google Calendar app on DIRROR is a dream come true! Now you can have a full weekly or even monthly overview of all your appointments and important deadlines all at a glance on a large screen. DIRROR’s multi-touch touchscreen helps you view and schedule your appointments with such an ease.

The reason we love it so much is the possibility to have several calendars in one: merge every family member’s calendar together to create a digital family planner. That way you will always know when to pick-up and drop-off kids, plan family vacations and more.

Perfectly Dressed for any Weather

Feels like the weather becomes more and more unpredictable with every day. Thus, a good weather App is a must in your DIRROR. Our absolute favourite is the Weather Channel App. Not only does it show the forecast for the whole week but it provides you with detailed knowledge about the whole day. You can also see the weather map for the past 24 hours and it looks especially spectacular on a large screen on DIRROR.

The reason we love it so much: It is the perfect app to make sure you are always appropriately dressed for the day. When it’s expected to rain, DIRROR will tell you to take your umbrella, and when it’s sunny, it will make sure you don’t forget your sunglasses!

Got inspired? Find out more how DIRROR can simplify your daily life: